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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598132">I trot to the wolf as a doting sheep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trifoliate_undergrowth/pseuds/Trifoliate_undergrowth'>Trifoliate_undergrowth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - 1940s, M/M, No Smut, fragment, just eldritch flirting &amp; evil, pre pre pre prequel ?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:28:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,878</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trifoliate_undergrowth/pseuds/Trifoliate_undergrowth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d never had so much fun with a new body. He knew everything about Will, and Will had no idea. So they talked, and Will managed some pretense of confidence even though Jonah knew he had his ankles locked together under the seat, bouncing in his nervous tic, and that he occasionally thought of reaching across the table for Jonah’s hand but that his heart froze in panic the second he realized what he was considering.</p>
<p>[I was going to write a WWII era arranged-marriage-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers-to (you get the idea) Lonely Eyes origin story type thing in which they were also trying to foil The Slaughter's ritual. But the intro characters developed a life of their own, and then the whole idea was too long and complicated for me to actually finish, so here's just the intro part, with not-Elias being Creepy And Evil with his employees in his quest to get a New and Better Body.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonah Magnus/Original Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I trot to the wolf as a doting sheep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The stabbing pain of reattaching nerves faded and the young man unclenched his jaw and blinked up at the ceiling. There was a needling sensation behind his eyes as he blinked it into focus, then smiled, stretched and relaxed against the pillows. Now the only odd feeling was a slow tingle of adjustment, like the feeling coming back to a leg that had fallen asleep. He focused on the rise and fall of his chest, the gentle sound of air entering and leaving his lungs. Raised a hand and touched the smooth skin of his throat, feeling the pulse beating there. Ran his fingers through his hair, lovely and soft.</p>
<p>Good. He was back. He sat up carefully, bracing himself for any lingering side effects, but his mind was clear and his body responded perfectly. He stood in a single smooth motion and ran his hands over his body, laughing. <em>Perfect</em>.</p>
<p>He undressed in front of the mirror, exploring the dimensions of this new body with eyes and hands. He flexed, spun around. He’d known this was a good one but having it here at last, fully his own, responding to him, was always a rush. And this was a <em>very</em> nice body. He winked at himself in the mirror, frowned, grimaced, smirked, finally laughed and squished his own cheeks. Perfect. Perfect.</p>
<p>Now he just had to deal with the discarded body lying on the other side of the bed. He walked around to look at it, curious how it would appear from a new set of eyes. It wasn’t a bad body—middle-aged, with wavy dark brown hair greying at the temples. Will Tera’s eyeballs had settled into the sockets, the body’s lingering healing abilities just enough to reconnect them. When they found the body, nothing would appear out of place. Perhaps the Head of the Magnus Institute had simply had a premature heart attack. Tragic.</p>
<p>No one would ever know that the real story was far more interesting.</p>
<p>He hadn’t <em>needed</em> a new body yet, not really, but he wasn’t going to waste a good chance when he found one. Will was perfect for him. Obviously, his work in the Institute showed some intelligence, so he wasn’t worried about his consciousness disagreeing with the body’s mental capabilities. (He’d only had that problem once, and after a few months of headaches and brain fog it had worn off as the body changed to suit him. It was good to know that he could do that if necessary, but he’d prefer not to have to bother with it.) He was doing well enough in the Archives that he could be named next Head of the Institute without <em>too</em> much shock, not that the Institute could really stop him, he’d made sure of that. More importantly, he was estranged from his family and had no lover or close friends; and he had hazel eyes, close enough to Jonah’s green that the change wouldn’t be obvious. But these were only the basic prerequisites of a good body. Will Tera was 24 years old with a slim but compactly muscled body that never seemed to get sick or cold, a delicately angled face, narrow eyes and smooth, dark hair that he’d Known was soft even before testing it. It was as close to aesthetically perfect as he’d ever seen, and now with the glass-green of his eyes replacing the duller hazel of the originals it was even better.</p>
<p>Of course, it hadn’t all been greed and the desire to possess such an excellent body. The Slaughter was planning something. He could feel it building on the horizon, and whatever it was, it would be better to face it with a fresh body. So Will’s presence at the Institute had been beyond fortunate.</p>
<p>To top it all off, Will Tera had a soft spot for him—for Jonah, or rather Isaiah; the Head of the Institute, the last body he’d stolen, the one now lying dead on his bed. He wasn’t sure why; Isaiah wasn’t a bad body and he felt a hint of nostalgia now looking at it, but it wasn’t all that interesting. Not on Will’s level, he would have thought. But something about it had attracted Will, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. Usually he had trouble getting his new bodies alone somewhere that he could knock them unconscious and make the transfer in privacy: Will, for a change, had been delightfully easy.</p>
<p>On a day when Will was one of the last people working, Jonah-Isaiah had contrived to leave at the same time as him, and naturally they had started chatting on the way out, as they happened to be walking the same direction. Will was a decent conversationalist, if a bit breathless at first; but he got over it, mostly. Jonah didn’t even have to pretend not to notice his reaction when he casually asked if he’d like to get dinner; with his visible eyes he glanced at Will and was then preoccupied with fixing his sleeve, but he had other eyes, and they told him that while Will calmly agreed he was blushing and furiously reminding himself that this was, if flattering, a normal interaction and not something to get all excited about.</p>
<p>It was absolutely hilarious, and Jonah couldn’t resist toying with him a bit. Walking just close enough that he couldn’t make up his mind as to whether it was flirting or just poor sense of personal space. An unnecessary shoulder touch that was just a second too long. And then an absolutely infuriatingly long rambling monologue on the archival filing system and why they shouldn’t bother updating it even though it made everything more complicated. Will managed to weather that still in a good mood, which proved he had very little sense; but he did take the first opportunity Jonah gave him to redirect the conversation into discussing the Institute’s rare book collection, which was something that Jonah genuinely cared about, and after that the conversation was… not bad, even if he did have to stop himself from talking too much about the really interesting books.  </p>
<p>He’d never had so much fun with a new body. He knew everything about Will, and Will had no idea. So they talked, and Will managed some pretense of confidence even though Jonah knew he had his ankles locked together under the seat, bouncing in his nervous tic, and that he occasionally thought of reaching across the table for Jonah’s hand but that his heart froze in panic the second he realized what he was considering.</p>
<p>Jonah realized he’d started rambling about cuneiform, and wondered how he’d got onto that subject and why Will was nodding with interest that he could tell wasn’t faked. The infatuation would be annoying if it weren’t so amusing, and so perfectly suited to his needs.</p>
<p>In any case, he convinced Will to help him finish off a bottle of wine that he hadn’t especially wanted (it was overpriced for the mediocre quality) and tried to find something normal to talk about. He didn’t need to, because at the first sign of the conversation lagging, Will started talking about stories from the last war. Of course.</p>
<p>It didn’t take Jonah’s preternatural vision to see the world’s mask of peace wearing thinner and thinner, and though Will could only remember brief flashes of the last war—the one that they had foolishly thought would be <em>the last</em> war—his parents had lived through it, and he knew their stories, supplementing them with his own faint and broken memories. He remembered his fear when the bombings started, the way the news spread like fire from one family to another, the clenching apprehension in their chests as they realized the war was not confined to the trenches of Europe. He remembered his mother crying because she couldn’t reach a friend living in Scarborough after the bombs hit. A little shock of the family’s shared pain transferred to Jonah as he talked, a secondhand statement, and he drank it in.</p>
<p>He told Will about Staff Sgt. Clarence Berry’s statement about Wilfred Owen, thinking it made no difference how much Will knew or believed about the real state of things when he was going to be dead within a few hours. Will was both fascinated and horrified. He liked Owen’s poetry, he said, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about the implication that it wasn’t entirely Owen’s.</p>
<p>“Do you think he saw something real, then?” he asked, eyes shining, “Or did he hit his head and start seeing things?”</p>
<p>“Well, if I’m honest, I think it’s one of the more convincing statements we have. It doesn’t sound like something a man would make up, and there’s the question of how he survived.” More than that he Knew it to be true, and as far as he was aware the only eyewitness account of the Slaughter. The same entity now returning for another attempt at its ritual.</p>
<p>“Interesting,” mused Will. “From its description, it would seem to be a manifestation of war itself, rather than any particular war… it’s discouraging to think of how many wars there have been in human history.”</p>
<p>“I don’t think about it,” shrugged Jonah. “It’s unavoidable. We’ve always killed each other and we’ll do it again, and the piper will come back to play.” He just hoped the thing didn’t manage to stick around this time.</p>
<p>Again Will thought of taking his hand. He distracted himself with a rather large sip of the wine. Good.</p>
<p>When they left the restaurant it was dark, and the wind felt refreshingly cold against their flushed cheeks. Will didn’t want to say goodbye, so Jonah waited for him to speak, confident enough that Will wouldn’t run away to let him think he was making the first move. Will lit a cigarette, stalling, and Jonah idly wondered what the smoke would feel like in his lungs.</p>
<p>“Do you think it’s coming back?” asked Will.</p>
<p>Jonah took a moment to clarify his meaning.</p>
<p>“The piper,” he said, and Will nodded. “…the war. Yes, I think it’s unavoidable.”</p>
<p>Will looked away down the street, mind racing ahead. Poor fool. He wouldn’t need to worry about anything after tonight. Jonah stepped forward, nudging him gently with his shoulder, calling his attention back. It worked instantly, and it gave Jonah a warm feeling in his chest to see Will so fixated on him. It was… flattering.</p>
<p>“That’s a worry for another day,” he said quietly. Then, “come home with me?”</p>
<p>He watched him openly this time, as Will waited for him to clarify or backtrack, slowly processed the fact that he wasn’t going to, and blushed. It took him a few moments to respond, caught in Jonah’s gaze like a fly in honey. He smiled.</p>
<p>“I… sure, why not.” And he shyly touched his sleeve, and Jonah took his hand.</p>
<p>Foolish, foolish boy.</p>
<p>His hand was very warm. Jonah was glad, Isaiah felt cold all the time. Another thing he wouldn’t miss.</p>
<p>At some point on their way back to his flat Will had convinced himself that he was dreaming and therefore didn’t need to worry about anything, which he wouldn’t do regardless because he was with Isaiah. It put him in the perfect state of mind.</p>
<p>The dreams had helped then, Isaiah thought to himself. He’d been a bit conflicted about his decision to play with Will’s fantasies about him, but it had been… amusing. And had obviously predisposed him to trust Isaiah when the moment came, so it wasn’t for nothing.</p>
<p>This was brilliant, Isaiah thought as he fumbled with the lock; pity all his transfers couldn’t be this easy—unless now he’d jinxed it, no, he wouldn’t call it easy until he was finished. He took Will’s hand again to pull him inside, and although the hallway was dark he could see the flush that spread over him. He kicked the door closed and they were alone in the dark. He pulled Will closer to him, close enough to feel his breath, and turned to pin him against the wall with his body. Will didn’t struggle: he raised a hand, but only to grip Isaiah’s lapel. Isaiah smiled, not that Will could see him in the dark—but he could see everything, and it was good—and traced the outline of Will’s jaw in the dark before slowly, deliberately unknotting his tie. Will shuddered, and seemed about to say something, but never got the chance. Isaiah slipped the tie up around his throat and tightened it. Will didn’t have the time, or maybe the sense, to struggle.  </p>
<p>He didn’t fall, since Isaiah had him pinned firmly against the wall. That was good. He’d nearly been tried for murder once, after showing up to work with unexplained bruises the day after the Head of the Institute died, leaving the position to him. He’d learned to be more careful after that.</p>
<p>He stepped back, letting Will fall limply into his arms, then dragged him into the bedroom and dropped him across the bed. He was snoring softly, and Isaiah reflected that, satisfying as it was, this body wasn’t perfect after all. He’d didn’t like the propensity to snore. Not that anyone was going to hear him, he just considered it undignified. Ah well.</p>
<p>This was the tricky part. He couldn’t tie Will down, he would need to be able to use his hands in a moment, so his success relied on speed and accuracy. He pushed Will’s eyelids back—he had lovely lashes—pushed his fingers into his eyesockets and wrenched out his eyeballs. Good. Now the hard part.</p>
<p>His vision swam and went blank as he put pressure on his own left eyeball, took a deep breath, and wrenched it free.</p>
<p>That was never going to hurt less. Every time he thought maybe he’d gotten used to it and every time he was wrong. He’d wondered, if he used a scalpel, whether it would be a bit less messy, but frankly he couldn’t stand the thought of getting blades that close to his eyes, so he’d never tried.</p>
<p>He fitted the eye into Will’s empty socket. He was starting to wake up, making faint sounds of pain. He was out of time. He lay across Will to hopefully keep him still in case he tried to move, closed his right eye and tried to look through his left.</p>
<p>Stinging, burning of nerves regrowing, then the ceiling swam into view. His head burned, and he could feel Will’s consciousness struggling beneath him, finally aware that something was deeply wrong, but still too disoriented to put up much of a fight. It was over in a few seconds, and Will’s body was his own. He lifted a hand experimentally, focused on it through his one eye, flexed his fingers. Rolled his old body off of him and pried out the second eye. This one didn’t hurt.</p>
<p>Being able to know when no one was watching was the perfect skill for getting away from a murder scene without a hassle. He simply left calmly through the front door, after taking his time washing up and removing any traces of a struggle. He’d collected the few items that he wanted to salvage from Isaiah’s flat with him in a bag, and he walked back to Will’s apartment, whistling a carefree tune.</p>
<p>A cat ran towards him as he came in, yelling for attention, then stopped and gave him a long, hard look.</p>
<p>“Scram,” said Jonah-Will. He’d forgotten about the cat. A minor nuisance.</p>
<p>Slowly, it raised all the fur along its back and puffed out its tail.</p>
<p>“Right, you’re very intimidating. I don’t like you either.” Will had kept his cat inside after a near-miss by a car, but it had been a stray when he first found it, so Jonah hoped it would go back to its feral ways quickly. He opened a window and turned to grab the cat and pitch it out, but it was coming towards him sideways with its head twisted to one side, making a very unpleasant sound.</p>
<p>After a moment of indecision, he tossed his jacket over it and tried to bundle it up like that. It only worked for a moment. He’d been right that the cat remembered its feral ways, and had retained its street-fighting muscle too. A clawed paw shot out of the folds of fabric and raked across the back of his hand before he could eject it onto the fire escape, swearing, and slam the window shut.</p>
<p>The cat didn’t leave, but stood there waving its tail and staring at him. Then it opened its mouth and cried. It was a plaintive sound, as if pleading for him to reconsider.</p>
<p>“Shut up,” he said, “You’re not coming back inside.”</p>
<p>It cried louder. Its fur was still standing on end, tail thrashing through the air. It didn’t seem like it wanted to come back inside, actually, it looked like it quite disliked him. Strange. He wondered if he could look into its mind. He’d never tried to do that to an animal before, he’d never thought it worth the effort.</p>
<p>It cried again. “What do you want? Go, shoo, you’re free. Get in fights over garbage or whatever it is you creatures do. Don’t bother me. I’ve got more important things to do.”</p>
<p>The next sound it made was more like a howl than anything else, and it carried on for a long time.</p>
<p>“Shut up!!” Alright, he wanted an explanation for this. He stared into the tiny creature before him and encountered a roiling mess of blindingly simplistic thoughts. After so much time exploring the comparatively refined thoughts of humans it was almost painful, and very disorienting. What was worse was that the cat could apparently sense him doing it, something beyond the abilities of most humans; its eyes widened and ears flattened back close to its head as it gave a warning yowl.</p>
<p>He looked away with the beginnings of a headache. Fear and rage dominated, and it was clear that the cat knew, at least in general, what he was. That more than satisfied his curiosity for the moment.</p>
<p>He cleaned the cuts on his hand, which fortunately weren’t bad enough to need a bandage. Bandages might be suspicious, but a little cat scratch? Understandable. Well, it might be unusual for Will; he’d never known him to have had trouble with his cat before, but it wasn’t the kind of unusual that people would notice.</p>
<p>The next time he looked out the window, the cat was gone. Good. It had finally got the message.</p>
<p>The headache was mostly gone by the next morning, though he would have liked to sleep a little longer. He woke at dawn, as was usual for him, but Will’s body was reluctant to move. Will hadn’t been sleeping enough for a long time now. The vivid dreams he’d been having for the past few days probably hadn’t helped. He grinned as he remembered, wondering what Will would have done if he’d known they hadn’t been properly his own dreams. The substance of them was—Jonah didn’t have the power to shape dreams, but he liked to think that his presence had made a difference.</p>
<p>Anyone less smitten would probably have felt uncomfortable about the sudden overpowering sensation of being watched, but Will had been good at shrugging and accepting anything inexplicable as just part of a weird dream. Not much of an analytical mind, poor fool; nothing like the mind now inhabiting his body.</p>
<p>Will had decent fashion sense (for someone born in an era which worshiped shapeless baggy trousers), but he usually stumbled into the archives two minutes late with his tie improperly knotted, so the new Will restrained himself from dressing up too much. He’d give himself a little more leeway after he’d been installed as Head of the Institute; anyone who noticed a change at that point would chalk it up to Will wanting to do justice to his new position. But for today he was still pretending to be a harebrained archivist who spent half his work hours obsessing over an ill-advised infatuation. (Not that Isaiah had minded.)</p>
<p>Isaiah, however, was notoriously early, and the new Will could see that he’d already been missed. He smiled.</p>
<p>By the time he wandered into the Archives, after intentionally getting lost and then stopping to pet a street cat because it’s what Original Will would do and he was having a fun time method acting—although, the cat ran away; it seemed he’d lost Will’s cat-charming skills—most of the Institute knew that Isaiah was dead. Sudden heart attack, most likely. No one wanted to bring up the fact that his eyes looked a bit wrong, not quite the color they’d been when he was alive, because, well, he was <em>dead</em>, of <em>course</em> they were going to look a bit wrong, especially after remaining open all night and starting to dry out.</p>
<p>Will arrived at his desk exactly two minutes after he was supposed to be there, as usual, and sat down. Normally there was another man in this room, Benjamin Carlisle—Ben or BC or just plain Best Mate to Will. Ben usually just called Will by his name, but sometimes Billiam or Willamy. To his relief, Ben wasn’t there. He was enjoying the acting so far, but having to act chummy with Ben might test his patience. Of course, that raised the question of where Ben <em>was</em>.</p>
<p>After a moment of searching, he located him in a hallway one floor up, chatting with Moira about… ah, so he’d heard about Isaiah. News traveled fast.</p>
<p>He looked away, wanting to let Ben’s reaction to the news surprise him. Goodness knew he wouldn’t get much excitement out of interacting with him otherwise. Ben was about Will’s age, a bit shorter, round, prematurely balding, with thoughts so bland that Jonah had hardly ever looked at them. He’d been more interested in Will, after all. Although, Ben had had the sense not to trust Isaiah; he had to count that as one point for his intelligence. They had talked about him, to his great amusement. Will had been terribly obvious about his crush, and Ben told him to tone it down unless he wanted to get arrested, then begrudgingly admitted that the Head was rather attractive, “but if you’re going to fall for a man old enough to be your father, do you think you could manage to find one that’s less likely to be secretly a vampire or something?” and that had started off their discussion on whether Isaiah was secretly a vampire. They both agreed that there was something supernaturally odd about him, but Ben thought he was some kind of evil psychic, and Will was convinced that it was just an extension of being Head of the Institute, which, he said, was extremely haunted and probably Did Something to the man who remained as its Head for long enough.</p>
<p>Hilarious. He was almost not wrong.</p>
<p>Of course, Will’s unshakeable belief that Isaiah was a Good Person and was trustworthy regardless of his powers or their source had been his downfall. If he’d listened to Ben, maybe he wouldn’t be here, but despite his inexplicable fondness for the man he’d missed a lot of what he said. Things were more obvious from Jonah’s perspective. After breaking the ice with their speculations on the Head’s nature Will had seemed comfortable discussing almost anything with Ben; the men he found attractive, his dreams about finding someone to settle down with, his cat’s antics. Ben was an excellent listener and conversationalist, and he usually had something to add—he could argue for hours that Isaiah was an evil telepath wizard bent on exploiting everyone in his path for financial gain—but he always clammed up when Will asked if there was anyone he fancied. He’d give a vague answer and change the subject. Will—bless him, he really was a bit dense at times—never figured out why, but Jonah knew. It had been a real romantic comedy before he fucked it up by murdering the central character, for which he had no regrets whatsoever. Benjamin didn’t deserve him. He briefly considered using this body to break his heart, just to teach him a lesson about staying on his own level.</p>
<p>He’d have to count that as two points for Ben’s intelligence, though, or at least common sense. He’d been able to tell that Isaiah wasn’t trustworthy, and that Will was lovely, so: less blind than many in his Institute.</p>
<p>And here came the man himself. He paused outside the door, and Will caught some of his intent: he was trying to think of how to break the news to Will. Ben hadn’t shed any tears over Isaiah’s death, but he was worried it would upset his poor infatuated friend. Ha, ha.</p>
<p>He seemed to make a decision and pushed the door open.</p>
<p>“Will! You’re here, good morning, did you hear the news?”</p>
<p>“What news?” said Will, looking up with an interest he didn’t have to fake. Ben paused for a moment when they made eye contact, but he shook off the strangeness almost at once. The first Will had had green-ish eyes, sometimes.</p>
<p>“It’s… ah, I’m sorry, you’re not going to like this.” He leaned on the front of Will’s desk.</p>
<p>“Oh, no. Well don’t make me guess, what happened?”</p>
<p>“Isaiah’s dead. They found him in his flat this morning.”</p>
<p>“What? Just like that?”</p>
<p>“Just like that. Moira says it was probably a heart attack, but I doubt they know for sure at this point.”</p>
<p>Will struggled to think of how the original Will would have reacted, and defaulted to shock.</p>
<p>“… Oh. I… can’t believe it.”</p>
<p>“Well, at least now we know he’s not immortal.”</p>
<p>Will laughed before he could stop himself, and Ben gave him an odd look. “Yes, I suppose so.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’m glad you’re not pining too hard. I was worried about how you’d take it.”</p>
<p>“No, I mean, I’ll miss seeing him but—he’s really dead? Just like that? Damn, he seemed fine yesterday.”</p>
<p>“You saw him yesterday? Before I left you were complaining about not having been graced with his presence all day.”</p>
<p>Ah. Whoops. Fuck. Ah well, time to half-lie.</p>
<p>“Briefly, yes, we left together.”</p>
<p>“Hm. So you got one last admiring glance in.”</p>
<p>“Shut up. Okay, yes, he was an amazing man and the world will miss him.”</p>
<p>“I won’t,” said Ben.</p>
<p>“You have no taste,” said Will, even though he knew that <em>that</em>, at least, was not true. Ben laughed and went over to his desk.</p>
<p>Great. Now he just had to act normal and wait.</p>
<p>“What happened to your hand?” asked Ben suddenly.</p>
<p>“What?... Oh, cat got me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, Felicity? She’s always been so sweet.”</p>
<p>“Yes, I think it was an accident. She was falling off the couch and she snagged my hand on the way down.”</p>
<p>“That’s what you get, keeping a pet with knives for fingers.”</p>
<p>“Ha.”</p>
<p>Ben just kept looking at him after that. That was a thing he did sometimes. It was a lot more disconcerting when he was the one being stared at, but Will had never noticed, so he pretended not to, and focused on reading over some of Will’s notes. He wasn’t bad at archival work, but some idiot had made a filing error which Will hadn’t detected, so he picked up a pen to correct it.</p>
<p>Something changed. He forced himself to keep writing as if everything was normal while he mentally scrambled to figure out what it was that he’d sensed.</p>
<p>Ben was still watching him, but now he was afraid, so afraid that Will could feel it pouring off him in sweet waves. Not quite a meal for Beholding, but the Stranger might have liked it. That just left the question—<em>what had he seen?</em></p>
<p>Will kept his reading glasses folded up in a case in one of his desk drawers. He could read without them, but only by putting his face very close to the papers and squinting and occasionally swearing under his breath. He didn’t like to admit that he needed glasses (and he had a tendency to lose them if he moved them anywhere other than his desk) so they stayed in the drawer, and Jonah had known, but had forgotten to take them out. He didn’t need glasses anymore.</p>
<p>Ah. Ben had sharper eyes than he gave him credit for.</p>
<p>Well, no going back now. He kept writing, then put the pen down, scanned the rest of the page, and looked up. Ben didn’t even try to pretend he hadn’t been staring. Their eyes met and there was another burst of that confused fear.</p>
<p>“Something wrong?” Will smiled.</p>
<p>Ben stared into his eyes, then his gaze flicked down to the cat scratch on the back of his hand, and the notes he’d been reading so easily, his fear condensing from a vague sense of wrongness into sudden certainty.</p>
<p>He knew. Not who he was, not yet, but he knew this Will wasn’t the Will that had been here yesterday.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Original endnotes from months ago when I first wrote this:<br/>"Will (the original), honey, I’m sorry. You picked a BAD Eldritch Boss to crush on. We can’t all be Martin Blackwood.<br/>Stupid au where Jonah decides he should kiss Will before body-heisting him out of existence, to distract him obviously, and then somehow just. Forgets to kill him. And is like “oh well the right moment just didn’t come up I’ll do it tomorrow” and this just... Keeps Happening<br/>Stupid au where Jonah stalls long enough and does enough shady stuff that just being around him jumpstarts Will’s Archivist Powers, which Jonah was NOT meaning to have happen, and then they have an Avatar Duel when Jonah tries to take over his body and Will wins and steals his eyes and his Institute and repurposes it as a secret anti-ritual and generally pro-saving-humans-from-entity-bullshit association and makes Ben the new Head Archivist and they fall in love and the cat is also fine and loves Ben and they all cuddle together<br/>Dammit I could have written this version and everyone would have been so much happier dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit<br/>COUGH anyways, back on track for the real plot: who wants some of that stupid godforsaken lonelyeyes???? I DO" </p>
<p>addendum: current-era endnotes!<br/>So this idea got too big for me and also I've been having a bad mental health year(s) and having trouble committing to anything and this fic in particular is not priority but I did like what I had so far so here's just this. There are a few more fragments I MIGHT post as later chapters if there's interest? mostly lonelyeyes stuff<br/>Anyways, what was GOING to happen: Ben becomes a Hunt Avatar and spends the ENTIRE rest of the story trying to kill Jonah-Will with increasing levels of success, and Jonah is forced to realize that he underestimated the man. ((*fist pump* GET HIS ASS BEN)). Anyways the Lukas family is all "blah blah let's have an arranged marriage between our two most powerful avatars bc alliance between two powers blah blah JUST GO WITH IT OKAY ITS AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE FIC" and Jonah is like "ok cool but I'm not that into women" and Mordechai (who is still alive bc powerful Lonely avatars live A Long Time in this au which is why Peter is already alive at this point in time?) is like "oh don't worry I know our avatar is a dude" and Jonah is like "that's illegal" and Mordechai is like "eh it'll be a family affair. not civilly recognized. also we have money" and Jonah's like "fair. give me a time and place" and Modechai's like "don't you want to meet him first" and Jonah's like "no why would I"<br/>so they meet and PETER, THE ABSOLUTE MAD LAD, ATTEMPTS TO WOO THIS REPRESSED VICTORIAN MAN WHO'S STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT EVEN BEING GAY AND WHO HAS NEVER BEEN COMFORTABLE WITH ANY RELATIONSHIP THAT ISN'T JUST PREDATORIAL AND ANONYMOUS STARING AT STRANGERS FROM A DISTANCE. (This is actually the best possible setup bc the SECOND affection starts to be reciprocated Peter, who is aN AVATAR OF THE LONELY OR DID YOU FORGET, goes "oh no, oh wait, oh, oh no" and commences having a religious/personal/existential crisis that literally nearly destroys him but he ultimately survives by becoming the heartless asshole we all know and love to hate to love (oh is that just me? that's just me) &amp; finally letting his entity consume him.<br/>Oh but in the meantime all this arranged-marriage pining nonsense is being repeatedly interrupted by Ben trying to murder Jonah and being unexpectedly good at it because he's learned how to weaponize being underestimated. Peter throws him into the Lonely to flirt with his betrothed and Ben BREAKS OUT of the lonely THROUGH THE POWER OF HUNT-BESTOWED RAGE. also he completely foils Peter's attempt to show off his cool powers &amp; look powerful because It Didn't Work (peter is like THIS NEVER HAPPENS I DONT KNOW WHAT WENT WRONG and JOnah is like. FIX IT.)<br/>right well 170 owns my soul &amp; jonny Gets It my brain is turnign into fog I need to sign off and make dinner and try to remember who i am also I'm running out of space. peace<br/>(tell me if you want more, I have some but it would just be super disjointed scene fragments)</p>
<p>oh a final addition. I added the "Ben doesn't deserve Will anyway heuhguehgh" line in editing before publishing and. it PHYSICALLY repulsed me i was PHYSICALLY cringing away as I typed. Jonah you blind fucking bastard Ben is the ONLY one here who deserves Will Go Away You Crusty Old Man Horny Evil Ghost Bitch. People Only LIke You Because You Steal Good Bodies. theyre not YOURS. ur a SHAM . FUCK. OFF<br/>oh also. title from "Fear and Delight" by The Correspondents. thanks to ConvenientAlias for sharing</p></blockquote></div></div>
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